Kami Kaze Comes to the Aid of Japan’s Dolphins

Kami Kaze Comes to the Aid of Japan's Dolphins

Commentary by Paul WatsonSea Shepherd Conservation Society

Thanks to Typhoon No. 23, an unusually strong storm, the dolphins will not be slaughtered over the next few days.

Kaze means wind and Kami means Gods and the Kami Kaze, or the Divine wind, is credited with saving Japan from invasion by the Mongol Hordes. This Typhoon is moving quickly onto the southern portion of Japan and will disrupt the Japanese dolphin drive. Hopefully the Typhoon will destroy many of the vessels and the equipment used by Japanese fishermen to massacre defenseless dolphins.

This week it means saving dolphins from ruthless and barbaric Japanese killers.

Last year, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society had a crew in Taiji, Japan where we documented the bloody bay as a pod of dolphins were viciously speared, slashed and stabbed by Taiji fishermen. The photographs were published on the front pages of newspapers around the world and the video was aired internationally in dozens of nations. It was an embarrassment to the Japanese government.

We have another crew back in Taiji again this year to observe the horrific slaughter. Instead of slaughtered dolphins, our crew is hopeful they can document storm damaged fishing boats at places like Taiji and Futo.

Our crew is forced to take a lower profile than last year because Sea Shepherd crews have been forbidden to return to Taiji. This order resulted from the successful release of 15 condemned dolphins by Sea Shepherd crew members Allison Lance Watson and Alex Cornelissen.

On another front, the Humane Society International (HSI) opened legal proceedings in Australian Federal Courts on Tuesday against the Japanese whaling fleet. The suit charges that Japan has killed more than 400 minke whales within Australia's whale sanctuary over the past four years.

"The Japanese have always claimed to be doing everything by the book and we want to show that what they are doing is illegal," said Michael Kennedy, Director of HSI. HSI filed an application in Federal Court against Kyodo Senpaku Kaisya Ltd, Japan's last remaining whaling company, showing evidence of the killings in Australia's 200-nautical-mile exclusion zone.

Japan is the world's leading killer of whales, small cetaceans and dolphins. The relentless annual massacre of tens of thousands of social, highly intelligent animals is an obscene smear on Japan's international image.